Education hits home

Filling a gap in the education sector was the motivation behind an innovative tutoring service in Mitchell’s Plain.

Kristal Kruser’s business was founded three years ago and aims to promote education through the tutoring of fundamental subjects.

“I studied social work and started volunteering at a local primary school. It is there where I saw a gap for the improvement of fundamental subjects such as maths, English and Afrikaans. I worked with some children while volunteering and then my responsibilities at the school grew to where I was tutoring them after school. This is where I saw the need for this business,” she says.

“The foundation is very rocky. We experienced children in grades 4 and 5 who did not know the alphabet, which means they could not read and identify sounds. Teachers can’t help for that. Overcrowding, overloads of paperwork and language barriers are a reality in our classrooms and the one-on-one attention we offer helps the children,” she continues.

It was then that she decided to start a mobile tutoring company that brings the extra tuition to learners’ doorsteps.

“Tutoring is not familiar to Mitchell’s Plain so I brought this idea of having a mobile tutor service. We are a small team offering the service in the area,” she says.

Although founded three years ago, Limitless Tuition was only registered this year.

“I decided to name it ‘Limitless’ because the sky is not the limit,” she says.

Her business model was one of 163 entered into a local competition hosted by the City of Cape Town.

The #YouthStartCT entrepreneurial challenge is a competition set by the City annually for the past three years to encourage young people to become business owners.

The competition included training on Tuesdays and Thursdays with the numbers being cut down from 163 to 100 then to 50 then to 25 and then to the top 10 after weekly pitching sessions to the panel of judges.

Limitless Tuition ended in sixth place overall in the competition.

Kruser was informed about the competition and attended a workshop hosted at a local business centre. It was then that she was inspired to enter the competition.

“It was an existing business that we have improved on. We have never entered a competition before, but we did think our idea was viable and that is why we entered their competition,” says Kruser.

She says the competition has helped the business a great deal.

“The competition gave us an indication of where we were and how far we still had to go with the business. We could see what we were doing wrong or improve on. There were things discussed at the workshops that we were not practising in our business. One thing that stood out to me was that you need to work on your business and not in your business,” she says.

She adds the support they are receiving also assists them in growing the business.

When she started the business three years ago, she tutored five learners and has since expanded to 45 learners, in Strandfontein, Westridge, Colarado, Rondevlei, Lenteguer, Eastridge, Tafelsig and surrounds.

“It is a mobile service because most parents don’t have transport to drop their children. We go to the learners. This way the parents can be assured that the learners are learning – with everything that is happening, the learners are safe and comfortable in their own homes,” she says.

“There is help and someone they can reach out to for their children. We are all women and we are very small but we want to expand. We want to be job creators.”

She is therefore calling on matriculants, students who have done well and anyone able to assist them in tutoring children.

“We want those sitting at home who did well and are able to teach to reach out. Maybe those who are struggling with finances or want to study, we want them to use this bit of money to help them fund their studies. That is what my team is doing,” she says.

They offer tuition for learners from grades 1 to 12 after school and enjoy a 98% success rate.

While they focus on maths, English and Afrikaans, the subject tuition is learner and tutor dependent.

“The market for high school tuition in Mitchell’s Plain is great so we want to focus on primary schools but we are not limited to this,” she says.

Each session costs between R130 and R180 but monthly packages are also available.

V If you would like to get involved as a tutor or for tuition, contact Kristal Kruser on 061 913 8445 or kristal­@­limitlesstuition.co.za.

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